A Decennial Kkcokd 115 



in further detail. Wni will, this afternoon, get a first hand eonipre- 

 liensive idea of its present seope. Suffiee it to say that prior to 1917 

 it composed a personnel of approximately 80, ex})anding during the 

 next 18 months to 500 and at present including slightly less than half 

 that numher. The aggregate expenditm-es over the entire ten-year 

 period are in the neigh))orhood of two million dollars a yearly average 

 of about $200,000. This is l)ut an insignificant sum when the breadth 

 of the field and magnitude of the problems are considered. The re- 

 sults of much of the work cannot, of course, be (pioted in dollars and 

 cents. Certain other results, however, enable the use of such a yard 

 measure, and a few of them will, I am sure, serve to convince you that 

 organized industrial research is a paying proposition. 



For example: The building and construction trade uses annu- 

 ally approximately- five and one-half billion feet for structural pur- 

 poses where strength is important. This material is worth roughly 

 $200,000,000. Investigations at the Forest Products Laboratory on 

 the mechanical properties of American w^oods have given knowledge 

 permitting a twenty per cent increase in allowable working stresses 

 in many structural timbers. If the results are actually applied to only 

 ten per cent of such material, the annual saving will equal $4,000,000. 



The claims for loss and damage to commodities in shipment actu- 

 ally paid by the railroads amount to $10().()00.()()0 annually. Proper 

 nailing, developed and recommended by the Forest Products Labora- 

 tory, and adopted by the Xational Association of Box Manufactur- 

 ers, and through them by many companies and shippers, if conserAa- 

 tively estimated to save l)ut one per cent of this loss, means a total 

 saving of $1 ,000.000 a year. 



Work on w\ater-resistant glues and plywood for airplanes carried 

 on at the laboratory during the war emergency alone saved the War 

 Department $().000.0()() in their procurement of such material during 

 a twelve months period. 



Investigations carried on at the laboratory during the past year 

 regarding the use of hull fiber and second cut cotton linters for ])ulp 

 and paper have made availal)le 200.000 tons for this purpose and have 

 resulted in the establishment of large plants with potential production 

 of 300 tons per day and an annual sales value of $15,000,000. 



